THE PRINCIPLES

OF
PROFESSIONAL
COMMUNICATION
LESSON 1
 CORPORATE
CULTURE AND
PROFESSIONAL
COMMUNICATION
People's use of language in different social activities
SOCIAL FACTORS
 Who they are talking to
the number of people
they are addressing
general social context
PHYSICAL FACTORS
 distance between speakers or the presence of a
crowd
CHRONOLOGICAL FACTORS
 utterance is made, time of a day, certain point of
a week, season of a year
 PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION
William S. Pfeiffer (2013)

In Technical Writing: A practical approach

The purpose of Academic Writing is to
generate new knowledge in a particular
academic branch, the purpose of Professional
Communication is to get something done with
or within an organization.
Pfeiifer (2013)
Academic Writing
dept, logic, clarity, unity,
grammar and critical
thinking are the criteria
fpr evaluating academic
papers
Professional Writing
clear and simple
organization of ideas in
a format that meets the
needs of busy readers
 STYLISTIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE
LANGUAGED USED
Locker and Kienzler (2013)
Business and Administrative Communication
Language used in:
 Conversations
 Traditional Research Papers
 Professional Writing
 STYLISTIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE
LANGUAGED USED
Locker and Kienzler (2013)
Conversations
 used in speech and informal
writing
 uses short, simple words, slang
expressions and contractions
 friendly and personal tone
 uses the first and second
perspective
 can contain references to
personal experiences
Traditional Research Papers
 is more formal
 features many abstract,
academic or technical terms
and few or no contractions
 no effort to make the style
friendly
 first and second person
pronouns used minimally
 sentences and paragraph
tends to be long
Professional Writing
 has features in between the
two styles
 sounds like a real person
talking
 short and simple words and
occasional contractions but
local expressions and slangs
are avoided
 make a personal connection
with the reader
 paragraphs tend to be short but
Standard Edited English is
used
PROFESSIONAL
PURPOSE
 PROFESSIONAL PURPOSE
All kinds of professional writing have specific
purposes related to the workplace setting.
1. One purpose is to record important
workplace information
• minutes of the meeting
• secretarial notes
• official documentation of proceedings
 PROFESSIONAL PURPOSE
All kinds of professional writing have specific
purposes related to the workplace setting.
2. To give or ask for information from people
within the company
• via memos
• business letters
 PROFESSIONAL PURPOSE
All kinds of professional writing have specific
purposes related to the workplace setting.
3. Persuade readers to take action
• pay a fee
• buy something
• accept changes
• give someone a job
 PROFESSIONAL DOCUMENTS
1. Transmittal Memo - A MEMO (or letter) of transmittal acts to
officially announce the release of the report, give the reader the
background necessary to understand the report's importance, and.
further establish the relationship between the writer and the
reader.
2. Monthly or Quarterly Report - These forms may include more detail
than quarterly and annual reports. Quarterly reports are usually
accompanied by presentations from a company's management where key
performance indicator data are presented to investors and analysts.
3. Performance Appraisal - A performance appraisal, also referred to
as a performance review, performance evaluation,[1] (career)
development discussion,[2] or employee appraisal[3] is a method by
which the job performance of an employee is documented and evaluated
 PROFESSIONAL DOCUMENTS
4. Claims Adjustment - A claims adjuster investigates
insurance claims to determine the extent of the
insuring company's liability.
5. Thank-you letter - A letter of thanks, or thank you
letter, is a personal letter that is used when one
party wishes to express appreciation to another party
on a personal level.
6. Annual Report - a company's yearly report to
shareholders, documenting its activities and finances
in the previous financial year.
 PROFESSIONAL DOCUMENTS
7. Quotation - a group of words taken from a text or
speech and repeated by someone other than the original
author or speaker.
8. Job Description - A job description or JD is a
document that describes the general tasks, or other
related duties, and responsibilities of a position.
9. Policy and procedure bulletin - The bulletin board
is reserved for the sole use of nonprofit organizations
to announce their missions, upcoming events, activities
or public services.
 AUDIENCE OF
PROFESSIONALS
 AUDIENCE OF PROFESSIONALS
Professional writing targets a specific audience;
 homogenous one;
1. a discourse community with the same level of
technical knowledge
(e.g writing for a specific discourse of professionals
like lawyers, engineers or architects, the writer may
use technical terms that are familiar to the readers
without explain what these mean.)
 AUDIENCE OF PROFESSIONALS
Professional writing targets a specific
audience;
 homogenous one;
2.“a group of people who share
assumptions about what channels, formats
and styles)
 AUDIENCE OF PROFESSIONALS
Professional writing targets a specific
audience;
 when the audience is not homogenous
or consist of different technical
background;
( the writer should aim for diction or
word choices that will be understood by
everyone )
THE STYLES OF
PROFESSIONAL
WRITING
 THE STYLES OF PROFESSIONAL
WRITING
1. Adopting a professional style means adopting a reader
perspective in writing.

I - Attitude You- Attitude

If I can answer any of your
queries, I'm perfectly willing to
do so.
We delivered the order to the
provided address this morning.
I'm happy to tell you that...
If you have any questions,
please ask.
Your order was shipped to
your address this morning.
You'll be happy to hear that...
 THE STYLES OF PROFESSIONAL
WRITING
2. Professional style is the emphasis on the positive order
to build a positive image and goodwill.
Negative Wording Positive Wording
We cannot process your Your reimbursement request will be
reimbursement request because your processed as soon as you submit all
documents are not complete. the requirements.
We do no reply to emails on You may contact us via email at any
weekends. time from Monday to Friday.
We can't give you the list of the You will receive the completed book
books because we have not yet inventory by tomorrow morning.
finished taking inventory.
 THE STYLES OF PROFESSIONAL
WRITING
3. Use of bias-free language
Biased Bias-free Biased Bias-free
Chairman Chairperson/chair manpower labor force/personnel
Salesman Sales representative/rep/staff mankind humankind
Stewardess flight attendant man hours hours/worker hours
Fireman firefighter manning staffing
Woman lawyer lawyer managers and managers and their
woman doctor doctor their wives spouses
lady president president faculty and faculty and their
male nurse nurse their wives spouses
Dear Sir: Dear Sir or Madam:
PROFESSIONAL
LANGUAGE
 PROFESSIONAL LANGUAGE
1. Polite language
2. Avoid using overly personal language
3. Avoid grammatical and typographical
errors
4. Avoidance of "business jargon"
5. Avoid using emojis, shortcut and
overly emotive punctuation.
 GENES OF
PROFESSIONAL
WRITING
GENES OF PROFESSIONAL WRITING

 Each type of documents follow

specific genetic conventions
which are, simply put,
conventions for the formatting,
layout, and contents of the
documents.
The Difference of Letter and Memorandum

William Pfeiffer (2013)

“a letter is a document that
conveys information to a member
of one organization from outside
of that organization,” while a
memo (memorandum) is a document
written by a member of an
organization to one or more
members of the same
GENES OF PROFESSIONAL WRITING
 LETTER
 form of external communication
 contain an inside address and a signature
 specify the recipient and sender respectively
along with their contact information
 salutation and complimentary
 consist of the word “Dear” followed by Mr.,
Mr. and etc)
 Conventional complimentary close; Sincerely,
Respectfully, Best regards.
 the letter is formatted in a ways that makes
relevant information easy to see and understand.
Business Leter Template
Company Letterhead
(two or more blank lines)
Date or letter
(two or more blank liines)
Name of Recipient
Position/Designation of Recipient
Address of Recipient
(one blank line)
Dear+ Courtesy title + Readers last name:
(one blank line)
Business Leter Template
First single-spaced paragraph
(one blank line)
Second single-spaced paragraph
(one blank line)
Third single-spaced paragraph
(one blank line)
Complimentary Close, such as “Repectfully yours”
(three blanklines for the sender's signature)
Name of Sender
Title/Designation of Sender
GENES OF PROFESSIONAL WRITING

 MEMO
 internal communication
 immediately gives the date,
addresse and sender and the
subject of the memo in the
standard format
 there is no need for a
salutation, complimentary close
and signature block.
Memo Template
(two inches of blank space)
Memorandum of Memo
To: Reader's names (individual or group name) and
designations/job titles
(one blank line)
From: Writer's name and designation/job title
(one blank line)
Date: Current date
(one blank line)
Subject: What the memo is about
(two blank lines)
Memo Template
First single-spaced paragraph: an opening that grabs
attention and introduces the purpose of the memo, the
contect and problem, and the specific assignment task
(one blank line)
Second single-spaced paragraph: a body that explains the
purpose and context in greater detail; uses lists, if
necessary, for easy digestion of information
(one blank line)
Third single-spaced paragraph: a closing that includes a
request for action, deadline and reasons; ends courteously
GENES OF PROFESSIONAL WRITING

The writer should also know the

mechanics or the conventions
governing the writing aspects
suchas punctuation,
capitalization, the use of number
versus figures and abbreviations.
GENES OF PROFESSIONAL WRITING
General guides/mechanics
 Spell out acronyms at first mention;
afterwards, use the acronym for example,
“The University of the Philippines
(UP)...”
 Spell out symbols such as ampersands,
for example “and” not “&”
In general, spell out numbers from one
to nine as words and write the rest as
figures.
 THE DESIGN
PRINCIPLES OF
PROFESSIONAL
WRITING
THE DESIGN PRINCIPLES OF PROFESSIONAL WRITING

Various elements:
1. Size
2. Type
3. Quality
4. Paper to use
THE DESIGN PRINCIPLES OF PROFESSIONAL WRITING

Another elements to consider:

5. Line use
6. Proper arrangement of content or
LAYOUT.
THE DESIGN PRINCIPLES OF PROFESSIONAL WRITING

Layout:
*font size
*font choices
*effects
*line breaks
*foreground key information
THE DESIGN PRINCIPLES OF PROFESSIONAL WRITING

Typography:
- typeface of font's design. How
easy it is to read or to tell one
letter from another

Ex. Times new roman, arial, calibri

and verdana
THANK YOU FOR
LISTENING! :)
-GROUP 4